Preaching from the choir: it's gay, and it's gospel (sort of)--check out Toronto's eclectic Hidden Cameras.

The Smell of Our Own * The Hidden Cameras * Rough Trade

How big a niche market might there be for "gay church folk music"? That's the label that Joel Gibb, the out ringleader of Toronto's Hidden Cameras, coined as a preemptive sound bite to describe his band's merrymaking. Too bad there's no mention of the group's concept-heavy concert performances and scantily clad go-go dancers. Still, the music more than stands on its own.

In the beginning the Cameras were just multi-instrumentalist Gibb. After self-releasing one album in this incarnation, he recruited a small army of musicians for the band's official debut, The Smell of Our Own. Gibb's original guitar-driven outlines have been converted into lush orchestral pop laced with enough timpani and cascading strings to suggest the retro stylings of the Dream Academy or a punchier Belle and Sebastian. Hardly a typical soundtrack for a go-go troupe, but the Cameras capture the hand-clapping catchiness of a sing-along revival show, even if the "hymns" have a distinctively queer spin on spirituality.

Sacramental themes and overt homoeroticism remain edgy bedfellows, but celebrating the divinity in sexuality--and vice versa--makes its own kind of sense. In Gibb's mind the gay community can be as judgmental and oppressive as any fundamentalist religion, so his solution simply builds from the positive, connecting aspects of both institutions. Fortunately, he understands the difference between frankness and mere shock value, so his songs about gay angels and a lover's water-sports ritual really don't come across as blasphemous. It's just a more primal kind of body worship of the Corpus Christi.

The group's oratorial recording style further enhances the churchy vibe. Vast, open acoustics allow the music to resonate and expand beyond the lo-fi production. That leaves plenty of space for the organ, harp, and choral harmonies, although Gibb himself sometimes gets lost in the echo. The melodicism of John Denver is alive and well in his throaty warble, but when his enunciation dissolves the lyrics into the ether, one wishes he were miked more clearly.

Or would that make them too professional? The Hidden Cameras come from the do-it-yourself ethic that wants only to present a healthy alternative to everything else that's out there. And what could be more subversive than an indie update of Godspell with a post-Stonewall makeover? The Cameras are fun because they know precisely how to take liberties with the script, which is why The Smell of Our Own should find the broader audience it deserves.